Perth Day Three
What a thrilling and mixed weekend for both the VCS and DS2 crews with everything from pole positions, podiums, mechanical issues and jump starts. Day four of the Perth Supersprint began with fabulous weather, which at least was consistent throughout the weekend.
Perth Day Three
Not much to report from this morning’s practice with the obligatory tyre changes and the opportunity to practice the pit stop and tyre change for the race. The shake up with the crew has resulted in lightning-fast pit stops.
Today’s race saw a great start by Cam and he charged into turn one in first place, whilst Thomas had a blinding start to stave off the hard charging Will Brown into turn one and into third position. The crew held their breath when Cam hit an oil patch on the opening lap and nearly spun allowing Chaz to drive past taking the lead.
Lap 29, and Thomas was into the pits to change the left hand tyres only hoping to overtake Chaz in the pits. Chaz’s release was deemed unsafe’ after he almost hit Thomas and was awarded a 5 second penalty whilst Slade was awarded a 15 sec penalty for the same infringement. Lap 50 and Thomas was hit by Will Brown which almost resulted in Thomas ‘beaching’ his Castrol car in the sand trap. Thomas’ quick reflexes and driving skills, enabled him to climb out of the dirt and resume the race in 6th position and finishing the race by taking 5th position. Cam continued to keep it clean to finish the race on the top step of the podium.
Our DS2 boys’ day began quite calmly with all of our boys qualifying in the second group. It was an uneventful qualifying session until 2min 40sec remaining in the session and Bradley put his car on pole position. The timing screens quickly lit up with all drivers pushing hard to bump Brad from pole. Lochie finished the session in a respectable 10th position and Rylan with a mid field qualilfying position of 15th.
Lights out for race two and Brad jumped the start which resulted in a 5 sec penalty, Lochie lost a place at the start and Rylan walking into the garage after suffering a gearbox failure… not ideal!
And that’s about when the real carnage began with Mason Kelly’s mustang catching on fire and spewing oil over the track. The following cars hit the oil and priroet across the track, into the sand, back onto the track and everything in between. A Red Flag brought the field to a holt at the beginning of Pit Straight os the offending oil could be cleaned up. With 4mins 20secs left in the race the restart was always going to be a sprint race to the end. Brad won the battle into turn one and Lochie went from 17th position to 13th. Contact between Cam McLeod and Cooper Murray saw Cam in a frightening rollover, three times over landing on the the belly of his badly damaged car. Fortunately, Cam extracted himself from his car and walked to the medical vehicle. The race was Red Flagged immediately and finished under these circumstances. Official placings once Brad was issued his five second penalty, Brad 9th, Lochie 13th and Rylan a DNF.
The hard work and dedication of the Tickford Racing Crew both at track and back at Headquarters is finally paying off. We leave this weekend with precious Driver Championship points and Teams Championship points and with eight rounds left in our Championship Series, we are confident we will only just be stronger and faster.
